The Ringed Castle (84 page)

He rose, and picking them up, took them across to the low window. The housekeeper, after hesitating for a moment, had gone. After a moment Lymond said, ‘Philippa?’ And rising with rigid composure, Philippa walked to the window and joined him.

There were two papers which he handed to her, one by one. On each was a single paragraph written in the same hand, with the same wording exactly, save for the child’s name which had been filled in on each. The first paper he gave her bore the name of Eloise Crawford, his younger, dead sister. The second carried his own.

And there followed a blank. Below, there were two signatures, one of a man and one of a woman, and Sybilla’s own name, signed in thin, faded ink. It was dated November 1st, 1526. She looked at Lymond, who was not, it seemed, the same age as her mother.

Lymond said, his voice perfectly steady, ‘But the father’s name is missing on each.’

‘Ah, yes. She would have that,’ said Bailey. ‘It is on the originals. Or so I believe. But she wouldn’t risk keeping a copy of that in the castle, would she?’ And he laughed.

‘You stole these from Midculter?’ Lymond asked.

‘I came across them,’ said Bailey. He looked pleased. ‘You recall. It was no part of my promise to tell you your parentage. Only to give you proof that you were got out of wedlock. There you have it.’

‘But,’ said Lymond delicately, ‘it seems to me that nothing as yet has been proved. These are copies, you say. Where are the originals? And how do I know this is my mother’s signature? Of all people, I have reason to believe that you may have talents as a forger. Am I right?’

‘I have a gift,’ Bailey said. ‘But that writing is genuine. Hold it beside the paper I showed you, with my pension. As to the originals, I have no idea where they are. You are welcome to look for them. Or you could ask your mother, if you think it is worth it. But ask yourself first if she would have paid me all these years to keep a lie private.’

‘Another question occurs to me,’ said Lymond. ‘Why were these certificates written? And when written, why copied?’

Bailey shrugged the massive, stained shoulders. ‘You know the lady—the gentle, excellent lady—better than I do. Perhaps she wished to hold your father—your nameless father—to his duty. There must have been accouchement expenses to pay. Perhaps—whoever he is—he has been helping her with your upbringing, my pension, her pins and ribbons and sweetmeats. He may be a grieve at your own——’

He broke off, and not before time. Lymond said, ‘No. My patience has quite well-defined limits. You talk of “he”. Does that mean that my sister and I shared the same father?’

The lord of Gardington was afraid, but he covered it still with bravado. ‘I am terrified to speak,’ said Leonard Bailey. ‘I can only say that I do not know. And that you know the lady—the dear lady—better than I do.’

‘Yes,’ Lymond said. His face, Philippa saw, marked the stress more by its altering planes than by any dramatic displacement of colour. She knew her own face was pale and her stomach tired and painful within her. She walked back and sat down, while Lymond laid the two papers again on the desk and remained, surveying his relative.

‘Now,’ said Lymond, ‘you will listen to me. From this moment, the payment from my mother will cease and I shall order a similar sum paid to you monthly, from my bankers in London. I shall leave with them such an amount that, whatever happens to me, there should be a pension secure for your lifetime. I shall also leave instructions that the day this information becomes public, from whatever source, the pension will cease. Is that understood?’

‘But——’ said Leonard Bailey.

‘Is that understood?’
said Lymond again, and this time, Bailey said, ‘Yes.’

‘I am glad. You will now take paper and pen and write a letter to my mother at Midculter telling her that your health is failing and that you intend to go overseas. You will thank her for all the financial support she has given you hitherto, and say that you now have enough to serve the remaining years of your life, and do not wish to have this matter more on your conscience. She may take it upon your honour … your honour, great-uncle Bailey … that her secret will remain quite safe with you. You will sign it, and I shall see that it reaches her.’

The letter seemed to take a long time. Outside, the rain beat, noisy as straw on the window panes and the vice candlestick, newly lit, threw its light on the littered desk and the worn, damp-smelling books as they waited. It was late: too late to make much of their journey back to London. They would have to stay, as Lymond thought, at the
Chicken
. No … not at the
Chicken
, Philippa suddenly recalled. For that inn harboured the underpaid ostler who had sent
Bailey word of their coming. Mr Crawford would not want to return there. Well, there were other inns.

She looked at him, standing by the desk watching Bailey painfully writing his letter. He had not touched the old man, or even threatened him, except to protect Sybilla from his foul tongue. She wondered what part Bailey had played in his past, when outlawed and sought by both England and Scotland Lymond had come eventually to stand trial in Edinburgh, on the evidence which Bailey must have helped manufacture. It took a self-denial approaching to Calvinism not to take revenge for that kind of malevolence, because a man was old, and alone, and a kinsman.… No. Not even a kinsman. If all this were to be believed, Leonard Bailey was no kin at all.

The rest of it, of course, was all done for Sybilla. Sybilla who, having broken her marriage vows, had been too proud to tell this son whom she had drawn so close, but had left him to find out, like this. Who must know, or suspect, why he turned his back on her, but still had done nothing to put matters right. Because, one was bound to suppose, she dared not face the one question he was certain of right to ask her: the name which the paper left blank.

And then the letter was finished, and laboriously signed and dusted, and the direction written, and Lymond, putting it away, had removed also the glittering pile of gold coins, followed by Bailey’s covetous eyes, and had slung on his cloak. She rose as well, and Bailey, behind his desk, stood also, and backed a little into the corner, his veined eyes wary, the linen damp with sweat round his neck. Lymond stood perfectly still, and looked at him.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘in all my life what reason I have had before to take a man’s life. The house you were brought up in was a Crawford house. The money which fed and sheltered and educated you was Crawford money. You reached man’s estate and still you stayed there, in this circle you found so despicable: stayed until the child born there to your sister was man enough to marry in turn; and only left when at last it was made clear your presence was unwanted. You told Mistress Philippa you were flung out. I do not think that, even if you were, you have cause for complaint.’

‘Do you not?’ said Leonard Bailey. ‘You do not remember my sister’s husband. Or did he dandle you on his knee? He never did as much for me, a child of eight, when my sister died.’

‘But that was not his offence,’ Lymond said. ‘His offence was his charity. It takes a great man to accept alms, and be grateful, and honour the giver with love and honest achievements. It has been done. But you did not even accept the gift of your manhood and then turn your back on the Crawfords. You devoted the rest of your life to injuring them.’

‘You move me to pity,’ his great-uncle said. ‘Show me again your
purse, and the ring on your finger. I see how I have ruined you. I see how your mother sits, bereft in the poorhouse. Look, sir, about you! Is this Midculter?’

‘No,’ Lymond said. ‘It is the tomb of a scavenger. The last station in a journey which should have been stopped long before, had you fallen among any but upright people, and men of good faith. They are not my kin, but I shall not disgrace them. Live your life, if you think it worth living. Spend my money, since you do not despise it. I shall only make one stipulation and since, unlike you, I am a man of my word, it will do you no injury. I wish, before I go, to see these papers burnt.’

‘What?’ said Bailey. He strode forward, snatching them up from the table and held them, protectively, behind his shabby gown. Lymond, the desk tinder box in his hands, was already occupied in lighting a spill. Bailey reached for the handbell. ‘Ho! Billy——!’ and then halted abruptly.

The flame in Lymond’s hands, nursed, ran along the middle bookshelves, causing a little charring on the nearest calf bindings. A wisp of smoke, coiling, lifted. ‘Or I turn your books into ashes. Don’t call,’ Lymond said.

Bailey’s hand, shaking, put down the bell. He swore. ‘This lying family! Upright, you said! And now——’

‘But you will get your pension,’ Lymond said. The flame in his hands, rising, touched the books just above. He shifted his grip on the spill. ‘For, after all, you could still start a scandal, a rumour; and the originals, you claim, still exist. In any case, as I say, I keep my word. Your money will come. But it would be sad if, instead, you were to lose all your books.’

The smell of singed calf filled the room. A vermilion light flickered. A roll had taken fire.

Bailey cried out. ‘There! There, God damn you! There, son of a harlot, begot in the brake! There is your birthright!’ And he flung the documents over.

Lymond’s hand, disregarding the heat, closed upon the bookroll, and extinguished the small flame. And then, picking up the two papers, he reduced them to ashes.

Then he said, ‘Come, Philippa,’ and, moving forward, she let him take her downstairs.

There was hardly a man capable of climbing up to see if Master Bailey was in his room, alive and unharmed by his visitor, but Lymond waited until Dorcas, with Billy stumbling beside her, had clattered up to the study, and when they came down, he threw the man another gold piece and, collecting his sword and his dagger, left the house with not a few of them following him, and asking his interest for them in Russia, where the rooftops were all made of gold.
He answered them smiling, and rewarded the lad with the horses, and lifted Philippa up, and then swung into the saddle himself. His hands, gripping Philippa, sent a rapid, vibrating pulse into her arm; but he appeared otherwise perfectly collected, and spurred off with exemplary vigour.

She followed him as best she could, for he rode very fast and the way was now almost dark. He passed the
Chicken
, as she had expected, and it was only an increase in the downpour and a realization, she supposed, that he could not expect her, as he would himself, to endure the hazards of a rough road in the dark that made him rein in at the next inn they came to, and, dismounting, find that there were two rooms to be had for the night.

Then he came back with a groom, who handed her down, so that she could not detect his state of mind by his touch. Inside the inn however, by the light of the lamps, it was a different matter. She climbed the stairs without speaking, and without speaking heard him wish her good night. She was to have a light meal, he said, served in her chamber.

The door to her room was beside them. ‘Come in for a moment,’ said Philippa. And as he made no immediate response, she added, ‘I know. My company isn’t going to help, but my medicaments might. I had a word with one of the maids there myself. Short of executions and violets and even the brain-pan of the blessed St Michael there are a few humble remedies which might make the thing a little less crippling. What does it spring from? The opium?’

He did come in, but not to sit down. She shut the door with a bang and knelt to improve the inn’s idea of a fire. ‘Lack of self-control, I thought,’ said Francis Crawford.

‘Yes. Well, I deserved that,’ said Philippa grimly, getting up. ‘I have seldom seen such an exhibition of howling restraint. And if you want to shout and smash things, please do. I should have been better pleased if you had smashed Master Bailey.’

‘On the contrary,’ Lymond said. ‘I think you were the restraining element. For which I am grateful. Philippa, I am better alone. You must forgive me.’

‘In a moment. Do you think he knows?’ said Philippa abruptly.

‘Who my father is?’ He moved incessantly, drifting from the table to the window to a chair, and back to the window again. ‘I don’t think so. Or my mother surely would not be paying him.’

Philippa said, ‘Do you want to find out?’

‘It seems a little late,’ Lymond said.

Philippa said, ‘Except that we both know Sybilla. Whoever he is, he must be a remarkable man. Your blood is not Gavin’s, which would please anybody: do you not want to know whose it is? You need to understand yourself better than you do.’

‘I have enough difficulty,’ Lymond said, ‘trying to understand your tortuous reasoning. You want my leave now to track down my father?’

‘That was by the way,’ Philippa said. She had a mild headache herself and wondered whether he had actually envisaged her sitting down, arms akimbo, to attack even the lightest of meals. ‘I was about to suggest that you must next find the originals of these certificates, and destroy them.’

He said, ‘Your mind works too well, doesn’t it, Philippa? I thought today we should come to the end of it.’

‘Something happened today,’ Philippa said. ‘You shared Sybilla’s burden. You didn’t want to do that before.’ She paused. ‘You can’t look for the papers yourself: you’ll be in Russia. Unless you want to confide in Nick Applegarth, let me do it. Or if there are things you don’t want me to know, tell me, and of course I’ll do nothing more.’

And she looked, candidly, at the place where he had come to rest, his arm on a chairback in the shadows.

‘I know no more than you do,’ Lymond said. ‘The papers will be in France, I should think. Perhaps Sevigny is a clue.… It was in the family, and Sybilla perhaps stayed there. One might look among the Dame de Doubtance’s papers, or seek the witnesses, or question priests and wetnurses and midwives.…’ He broke off. Then he said, ‘I don’t think I can stand the thought of that particular kind of prying. No. I don’t want you to do it.’